Bad Practice brought together reporters across 44 countries to investigate what happens when doctors are banned from practising.
The unprecedented project identified more than 100 cases in which doctors stripped of their licences for reasons including sexual abuse and reckless malpractice were able to resume practising in another country.
The reporting also examined alert systems intended to warn authorities about sanctioned doctors, finding cases in which warnings either failed to be issued or were ignored.
The jury described Bad Practice as the kind of cross-border collaboration the Impact Awards were created to recognise, citing its scale, ambition and public-interest value.
Jury member Oleg Khomenok, a senior programme manager at Internews Network, noted that the structure of the investigation reflected the problem it exposed, with dozens of country-specific stories published at the same time to reveal a broader, continent-wide failure.
The investigation prompted responses from health ministries and calls for reform from medical associations. The European Commission also agreed to review the alert system highlighted by the reporting.
“This is a multilayered investigation into an issue that puts the safety of ordinary citizens first and can affect any one of us,” Khomenok said.
“It goes far beyond standard reporting by exposing systemic failures in a way that has already forced health authorities to react and begin changing policies. The vast scale and ambition of this project show exactly what cross-border journalism can achieve when it focuses on the public good.”